Multiple user cooperative communication (MUCC) is a technology that increases, in an LTE system, a system throughput of particular UE by means of cooperation between multiple user equipments (UE). Specifically, for two cooperative UEs, one is referred to as supporting user equipment (S-UE), which is used as a data relay for B-UE, and the other is referred to as benefited user equipment (B-UE), which is UE at a data source end or a user that actually receives and uses data.
The B-UE cannot enjoy a good service at a place where cellular coverage is poor. In this case, if at least one UE close to the B-UE can communicate with a base station, and the B-UE can also transmit data to the at least one UE, in this case, the at least one UE may be selected as the S-UE, to relay data for the B-UE. The S-UE needs to be selected from UEs that are in an idle (idle) state, that have a discovery function, and for which signal sending is enabled. The UE in the idle state sends a device discovery identifier of the UE to the B-UE, so that the B-UE obtains discovery information, so that the B-UE can select an S-UE. An evolved base station (eNB) searches a UE list in the discovery information reported by the B-UE to obtain the UEs in the idle state. The eNB acquires, from the list in the discovery information reported by the B-UE, UEs that are in the idle state and that have a support function, so that the eNB switches, by means of a paging process, these UEs that have the support function from the idle state to a connect (connect) state. In this way, the eNB may obtain channel quality of these idle UEs by means of measurement, thereby determining whether these idle UEs can become an S-UE.
In a process of establishing the foregoing cooperative communication, the eNB needs to be connected to all UEs that are in the idle state and that have the support function. In this way, the UEs are switched from the idle state to the connected state, and the UEs and the base station further need to perform measurement for configuration of an air interface link and measurement reporting. Therefore, the UEs need to consume a large amount of electricity.